By the end of the month the traffic signal at Lathrop Road where it intersects with Cambridge Drive and Rev. Maurice Cotton Drive should be operational.
And then it’ll take only a few finishing touches – like the installation of the custom-made decorative street lamps that will be placed every 150-feet apart along Lathrop Road – to finish up the construction of the long-awaited and long-planned widening of Lathrop Road to four lanes through the heart of the city.
According to Senior Civil Engineer Michael King, the city has already installed the traffic signal and all of the necessary conduit and electrical wiring for the new street light, but are waiting on a controller module that will maintain the light cycles at the new intersection.
King said that the bulk of the landscaping work – including the long median that runs along Lathrop Road and will restrict most traffic from turning across the new four-lane roadway – has been completed, with some finishing touches expected over the course of the next week now that the rain has subsided.
Once all of that work is done, King said that the next major phase will involve installing the decorative street lamps – between 20 and 30 of them – along both sides of Lathrop Road.
The electrical conduit, the wiring and even the power is all ready once the lights themselves get delivered to the city. It is something that could take another month as each of them are made based on specifications submitted by the city for construction. The street lights that the city has been installing operates on a similar basis, but the intricate nature of the street lights themselves is taking longer than the custom-fit lighting figures for the intersection.
Once all of those pieces are in place, King said, then it will just be cleaning some minor things up before the project will be accepted as completed.
The city had slated to close the core section of Lathrop Road from 5th Street to Harlan Road for nearly two months, but were able to open it weeks in advance when Teicheirt Construction crews completed their core work ahead of schedule and made the decision to do the other improvements while closing down traffic to a single lane.
If the lighting fixtures arrive near the end of February, the project could be completed as early as March.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.